This invention relates to providing information to a display, and in particular to maximizing the amount of text displayed.
Large amounts of information, in particular, text is viewable to users from a variety of sources. For example, users may access the internet to obtain libraries of text on remote servers or obtain text from local memory. However, the amount of text which is viewable at a given instance may be limited by the user""s accessing device. In particular, the user may have an accessing device with a limited display.
For example, many devices such as handheld devices have relatively small displays for providing text to users. Typically, handheld devices are designed to be mobile, light weight, and small, which necessitates a relatively small display. A cellular telephone is an example of a handheld device having a small display. The cellular telephone""s small display provides a few lines of text which may include a name and a telephone number. Large amounts of text that have a variety of fonts and formats are not easily provided on a small display.
Moreover, users of handheld devices may require more information than can be easily provided on a small display. A typical user may want to have information that requires extensive text such as weather forecasts, driving directions, and/or stock updates. This type of information generally requires numerous lines of text that may not fit on a small display. Also, the text is usually designed or formatted to be easily used and/or comprehended by users. For example, the text may have large fonts in one section or multiple line breaks in other sections for emphasizing various options for the user, and/or information in the text. For example, a user may desire to access an internet page having a variety of fonts identifying links or other usable information. When accessing this information the user would prefer to access the information having the existing formatting or the existing font sizes and spacing. However, the information or text may not be readily available, as formatted, to a small display.
In sum, large amounts of text may be obtained from remote locations, such as servers on the internet, which are accessible by a handheld device, but the amount of text provided to a user is limited by the small display of the handheld device.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a method, device and/or an article of manufacture, such as persistent storage, having software for maximizing the amount of text provided to a display. The method, device and article of manufacture should provide text to the user in a format that is intended by the information provider while fitting the text on a small display.
A method for maximizing the amount of text provided to a display is provided. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the method is performed by a software program.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method for providing text to a display is provided. The displayed text includes a plurality of characters positioned in a plurality of rows. A processor readable representation of the displayed text is obtained. The vertical displayed distance between a first character in a first row and a second character in a second row is reduced.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the representation of the displayed text is an ASCII file or a markup language page.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the vertical displayed distance step includes the step of reducing the vertical displayed distance associated with a code in the representation of the text, wherein the code is an ASCII carriage return and line feed code. The code may also be multiple sequential tab and/or space ASCII codes.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the code is a markup language tag.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the reducing the vertical displayed distance step includes the step of substituting a plurality of first type codes in the representation of the text with a single first type code.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method for providing text to a display includes the step of reducing the horizontal displayed distance between the first character in the first row and a third character in the first row.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the reducing the horizontal displayed distance step includes the step of reducing the horizontal display distance associated with the code in the representation of the displayed text.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the code is a tab ASCII code.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method for providing text to a display includes a step of reducing a first character font size relative to a second character font size.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the method further includes the step of substituting a first font type for a second similar font type from a predetermined group of font types.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the method further includes the step of substituting a lowercase character with an uppercase character.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method for providing text to a display is provided. The displayed text includes a plurality of a characters positioned in a plurality of rows, wherein a first character in the plurality of characters has a first font size and type, and a second character in the plurality of characters has a second font size and type. The steps include obtaining a processor readable representation of the displayed text. The vertical distance between a first character in a first row and a second character in a second row is reduced. The horizontal distance between the first character and a third character in the first row is also reduced. A first character font size relative to the second character font size is similarly reduced. The first font type of a character is substituted for a second similar font type from a predetermined group of font types. A lowercase character is identified and replaced with an uppercase character.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a cellular telephone is provided. The cellular telephone comprises a processor and display coupled to a bus. A memory is coupled to the bus and stores a software program for maximizing the amount of text provided to the cellular telephone display.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the software program includes a vertical distance between characters reduction method, a horizontal distance between characters reduction method, a font size reduction method, and a font substitution method.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, an article of manufacture including a persistent storage device storing a software program is provided. The software program comprises a software method for obtaining information used to display text, wherein the text includes a plurality of characters having respective font sizes. The software program includes a method for proportionally reducing the font size of a character in the plurality of characters.
The drawings and text that follow describe embodiments of the invention in detail. It will be recognized that specific implementations may be carried out differently without departing from the invention as described with specificity in the appended claims. Likewise, in some cases details are not shown where one of skill in the art would recognize how to implement the described function from the description provided.